The 2010 legislative session — which will likely focus heavily on the state’s funding woes — will be the swan song for several lawmakers on the powerful Joint Budget Committee, the six-member panel that writes the state’s annual spending plan.
JBC chairman Rep. Jack Pommer, D-Boulder, and Sens. Moe Keller, D-Wheat Ridge, and Abel Tapia, D-Pueblo, will be serving their last sessions under term limits.
Meanwhile, Rep. Kent Lambert, R-Colorado Springs, is running for the Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Dave Schultheis, R-Colorado Springs.
It likely means at least four new members will serve on the JBC in 2011, a year that could be much worse for the state budget than the current one.
Some observers fear massive cuts in higher education, even the closing of colleges.
For Democratic veteran members like Pommer, who will be serving his fourth session on the JBC, leaving the committee, which operates as its own miniature legislature, is bittersweet.
“I would rather go out in a flurry of wanton spending,” Pommer joked. “It’s a little frustrating. There’s a lot of things that we set in motion (in prior years) that would have been beneficial to the state but also saved us money, and now we’re cutting them all back.”
Pommer said the state has had to reverse increases in early-intervention programs for developmentally disabled children and preventive health care programs. After years of increases, the legislature may end up cutting spending for public schools.
After several years of increases to higher education, the state now is holding appropriations to colleges and universities level only by dint of federal stimulus money that runs out in 2011.
“You see progress stalling, and that’s just a shame,” Pommer said.
Keller, who will be serving her sixth session on the JBC, echoed Pommer.
“Last year and this year, I have had the responsibility to cut and reduce the programs I believe in,” Keller said, referring to cuts to Medicaid, mental programs, colleges and aid to seniors.
“It’s like cutting my soul,” she said.
It’s not clear which senators will replace Keller and Tapia, who will be serving his fifth session on the panel. In the Senate, members of each party elect their JBC members, and that won’t happen until after the session.
But Senate Majority Leader John Morse, D-Colorado Springs and a former JBC member, has asked Sen. Chris Romer, D-Denver, to go to JBC meetings and observe.
Romer, known for his candid and occasionally impulsive style, said he doesn’t know if he wants to serve on the committee yet. He raised eyebrows during one recent hearing when he used an obscenity during a discussion about federal rules on vehicle emission testing.
“I had a momentary slip,” he said, adding, though, that maybe his style is just what the JBC needs.
“Is sedate and calm what we need to do, or do we need to shake it up?” Romer asked.
Certainly, Republicans have suggested the JBC needs a makeover. Several GOP lawmakers say the committee is too autonomous and doesn’t scrutinize state spending enough.
House Minority Leader Mike May, R-Parker, said recently he would replace Lambert with Rep. Cheri Gerou, R-Evergreen, if Lambert is elected to the Senate.
Lambert, serving his first term on the JBC, has won praise from fellow Republicans for his many detailed questions to state agencies about spending and salaries.
Meanwhile, Sen. Al White, R-Hayden, has often been at odds with his fellow Republicans for voting with Democrats on the JBC. Would Republicans replace White with Lambert if Lambert moved to the Senate?
“That’s a bridge Senate Republicans will have to cross next year,” said Senate Minority Leader Josh Penry, R-Grand Junction.
“Kent is doing a truly fantastic job shaking up the status quo, but Al’s a tested veteran and a smart advocate,” he said. “The best solution there is, win a majority and appoint them both, or better still, win a majority and totally reform the tedious and tired anachronism that is the Joint Budget Committee.”
If Republicans did win the Senate, they would appoint two of the Senate’s three members. That would mean a 3-3 partisan split on the committee, giving Republicans a much stronger hand in budget matters.
Tim Hoover: 303-954-1626 or thoover@denverpost.com
